Antioxidant intake among Brazilian adults - The Brazilian Osteoporosis Study (BRAZOS): a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Antioxidant nutrient intake and the lesser formation of free radicals seem to contribute to chronic diseases. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the intake profile of the main dietary antioxidants in a representative sample of the adult Brazilian population and discuss the main consequences of a low intake of these micronutrients on overall health.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The sample comprised 2344 individuals aged 40 years or older from 150 cities and was based on a probabilistic sample from official data. The research was conducted through in-home interviews administered by a team trained for this purpose. Dietary intake information was obtained through 24-h recall. The Nutrition Data System for Research software program was used to analyze data on the intake of vitamins A, C and E, selenium and zinc, which was compared to Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). Differences in intake according to sex, anthropometrics, socioeconomic status and region were also evaluated. The SPSS statistical package (version 13) was used for the statistical analysis. P-values < 0.05 were considered significant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Higher proportions of low intake in relation to recommended values were found for vitamin E (99.7%), vitamin A (92.4%) and vitamin C (85.1%) in both genders. Intake variations were found between different regions, which may reflect cultural habits.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results should lead to the development of public health policies that encourage educational strategies for improving the intake of micronutrients, which are essential to overall health and prevention of non-communicable diseases.</p

International migration and the rise of the ‘civil’ nation

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 2 March 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1369183X.2016.1155980Scholars largely agree that immigration policies in Western Europe have switched to a liberal, civic model. Labelled as ‘civic turn’, ‘civic integration’ or ‘liberal convergence’, this model is not identically applied across countries, since national institutions, traditions and identifications still matter. Even so, the main focus is on processes which allow or prevent migrants to be incorporated into nations usually taken for granted in their meanings. Moving from policies to discourses, this article aims to interrogate what kind of nation is behind these policies as a way to further scrutinise the ‘civic turn’. Exploring how the term ‘civility’ and its adjectivisations are discursively deployed in Italian parliamentary debates on immigration and integration issues, the article points to two opposite narratives of nation. While one mobilises civility in order to rewrite the nation in terms of a common, inclusive, civic ‘we’, the other uses civility to reaffirm the conflation between national identity and the identity of the ethno-cultural majority. These findings suggest the importance of exploring the ‘civic turn’ not only across countries, but also across political parties within the same country to capture the ways in which a liberal, civic convergence in political discourses might hide divergent national boundary mechanisms